


i just keep losing my beat

by rory_the_dragon



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Brian's Overthinking, Freddie Isn't As Deep As Brian Thinks, M/M, Strippers & Strip Clubs, stripper!freddie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:27:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rory_the_dragon/pseuds/rory_the_dragon
Summary: “And how much is that going to cost me?” Brian says, because after today he’s done with thinking about how he should act.Freddie’s smile is a slow release. “Darling, I can assure you-” His hand flattens under Brian’s to press tight to his chest. Brian wonders if he can feel the thudding of his heart, then realises he probably can. “I’m worth every goddamn penny.”(for day two of maycury week 2020)
Relationships: Brian May/Freddie Mercury
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35
Collections: Maycury_Week_2020





	i just keep losing my beat

**Author's Note:**

> this may be a total cheat because I actually wrote this like a year ago and have only linked this to day two of maycury week through the title but, hey, it's as good an excuse as any to actually get this posted somewhere.
> 
> age difference tag explained: freddie is 100% of age, I have it in my head he's like early twenties here but he has neither confirmed nor denied his age. brian is thirty nine.

Brian feels older than he has in years.

Maybe it’s the setting. He’s not seen this many shadowy corners and neon lights flickering since he was in his twenties. Can’t remember the last time he sat in a black-lit bar with the smell of alcohol and sweat in the air. Hasn’t rolled a whiskey between his hands and watched bodies moving, his own body itching for a taste or a fuck or a smoke, in god knows how long. 

Maybe it’s the divorce papers in the briefcase at his feet, waiting to be faxed to his lawyer.

He wonders how many other broken men are sitting around the joint, lost like him, pretending like him, and thinks that it’s probably all of them.

“What do you think?” Roger freshens up his glass with a nip of the expensive stuff. It burns on the way down, the way Brian likes it.

Brian tilts his glass towards him and the light glints through the amber liquid like a wink. “It’s everything you promised.”

Roger’s smile is brilliant in the dark. “Just what you needed, right?”

Brian has to wonder a little at the knowledge of the universe. He ran into Roger Taylor on the street a couple weeks ago, fresh from his solicitor’s office, pride bleeding out over the pavement cracks, and not expecting to see his old partner in crime on Kensington high street over a decade after they parted ways at graduation. They’d caught up in a nearby bar, talking until last call, and Roger had handed Brian a thin black card, blank but for a club name and address, and told him to stop by anytime for a drink on the house.

‘ _Or three_ ,’ he’d winked, as incorrigible as Brian ever remembered him. ‘ _You look like you need them._ ’

It had obviously been a card for a gentleman’s club but that had just seemed to fit with everything Roger Taylor had ever been in university, wild and brilliant and completely unsuited to a normal life. Brian had tucked away the card and almost forgotten about it, until today.

Several hours screaming at the woman he’d once thought he loved over an implacable oak table surrounded by implacable grey lawyers had left him with a bad throat, a stack of paperwork, and in need of those three drinks.

“Keep an eye, though.” Roger tilts his head as he cleans out a glass, and Brian follows the direction to the floor. The club isn’t full, too early for that, he supposes, but there’s still an atmosphere. Sex and danger rolled up in tight, artful bodies that are clever enough to disguise a prowl as a dance. “Expensive suit and lonely to boot; the boys here love your type.”

Brian looks away from the boys working the floor, from the bright shimmer of the firm body dancing at centre-stage, and bares his teeth in a grin. “How could I be lonely when I have you?”

Roger snorts but doesn’t push it further. Their shared misspent youth probably only warrants Brian the one, cursory, warning, or maybe Roger sees the approach coming because then Brian feels a body settle in beside him. Even in the flush of the club, he can feel heat from across the inches, and turns to see a dancer - because the boy is very definitely a dancer here, dressed up in red leather that looks slick and tight in the light - leaning up against the bar beside him.

Brian spotted this one earlier. When he arrived, he’d been on the stage. Not a fancy routine so early in the evening, but powerful for such a small frame. Hair so dark it seemed jet under the whip-sharp lighting, curling a little at the ends, and eyes clever and watching. He’d clearly clocked Brian entering, but kept his attention divided superficially amongst the crowd as he worked the pole at centre-stage.

Brian finds he might just have been expecting this.

“A French 75, Roger, darling.” His voice is higher than Brian expects it to be, for the amount of hair on his chest. He’s not waxed clean like most of the boys here, bodies coquettishly ageless and daring, but he looks young enough anyway which means too young. This close, his eyes are dangerously captivating and he doesn’t break his gaze from Brian’s as he adds, “He’s buying.”

“Am I?” It’s a dare, a cheap one, and Brian is too old to rise to it.

But still he signals his assent to Roger and the boy grins, delighted. 

There’s an expectant jut to his hip, a hint of submission in the drape of his body against the bar, the curve of his wrist as he accepts the drink from Roger, and Brian allows himself the small indulgence of eying the lines of his neck, the full plushness of his mouth.

The grin widens under Brian’s attention.

There’s only one reason for a showboy to approach a man sitting alone at the bar so Brian doesn’t feel bad about being caught. He lifts his eyes and finds mischief glinting back at him. 

“I’m Freddie.” He doesn’t offer a hand, nor does Brian expect one. Instead, Freddie traces a careful finger around the lip of his glass, crystal to the look of it, a small, delicate gesture. Every movement seems careful, calculated, and Brian has always had trouble when it comes to the clever ones.

“Brian,” he says, lifting an eyebrow, trying his best to keep it casual. Enthusiasm in a place like this is dangerous and old-hat. He’s sure a guy like Freddie has seen it a thousand times before. 

Freddie’s mouth opens and closes around Brian’s name, a sigh in the dim light, as if testing out the weight of it on his tongue. Then, a small smile, as if satisfied. As if Brian will just about do.

Brian feels amusement spring to his lips as something dangerously close to interest stirs inside him. All the quiet, raw, thudding energy of the place has somehow begun to turn, on a pinpoint, and close in on the boy leant up against the bar.

“Are the dancers here even allowed to drink?"

“No.” Freddie shrugs. “Just wanted to see if you would.” And he pinches the pitted cherry skewered on a cocktail stick between his thumb and forefinger, dragging it off and popping it in his mouth with a smile.

It’s the answer Brian knew he would give, but it doesn’t stop him from watching the way Freddie’s mouth moves around the fruit.

This whole thing is a dance, as practised and as hypnotic as the ones up on the pole, and Brian can tell instantly that Freddie is very good at it. Flirty but coy, outrageous one second then looking up at Brian under thick, dark lashes as if embarrassed by his own boldness. The light on his neck could be a pretty blush, and Brian’s sure that many a man before has been fooled by the tinted lights.

“What brings you here?” Freddie asks, setting aside the drink untouched. Brian was at least expecting a daring sip to be taken, proof of a willingness to break the rules- _but only so far_ , but as soon as Freddie’s fingers leave the stem it’s as if he’s forgotten all about the glass, too enraptured by whatever Brian could have to say. All for show; Freddie probably can’t afford to get drunk right now after ordering the most expensive cocktail on the menu on a potential sucker’s coin.

He tilts his head to where Roger has tactfully pulled himself away further down the bar to clean out glasses. “I was invited.” It’s purposefully boring, and Freddie’s eyes flash a little. Annoyance flaring too quick to hide.

Brian likes that, a hint of honesty in a room of lies, tries again. “I…” He swills the drink in his hand, and lands on the truth himself. “I wanted to not think. For a little while.”

It’s enough of an opening that he’s not surprised by the fingers reaching out to slip around the silk of his tie, playful and quick. Freddie tugs a little, a move Brian should have been expecting but wasn’t, and he’s fast to catch the hand with his own. Too fast, really. 

Freddie stills, assessing, before a laugh breezes out of him. “Definitely thinking too much, dear,” he says, fingers hot beneath Brian’s, and this time he moves closer himself. His voice is a purr. “If you get me alone, I can help with that.”

Between them, their hands are still together, as if this dancer has managed to pull Brian into a pact he’s already agreed to.

Strip clubs aren’t a novelty to Brian; too many clients and partners like the seedy allure of a contract signed surrounded by half-dressed bodies, as if power begets more power. He knows what to say and how to act, knows the game Freddie is playing, and any other night he’d loosen his grip on Freddie’s hand, smile politely, and say _‘another time’._

“And how much is that going to cost me?” He says instead, because after today he’s done with thinking about how he _should_ act. 

Freddie’s smile is a slow release. “Darling, I can assure you-” His hand flattens under Brian’s to press tight to his chest. Brian wonders if he can feel the thudding of his heart, then realises he probably can. “I’m worth every goddamn penny.”

So close now that in any other establishment it’d be improper, Freddie waits. Half a breath away, caught between the splay of Brian’s knees, and Brian knows the way this is going to go. Can feel the warmth of Freddie _almost-but-not-quite_ against his thigh, and thinks he rather likes it, thinks he wants to chase this electric feeling in his chest more than he wants to finish his drink and think about his day, his life, his marriage.

He thumbs the space above the knuckle of his left ring finger, wedding ring tan and indent long faded but the habit hard to break, and thinks he should stop thinking.

“Can I get you alone then?” He asks, with a smile, and is definitely not thinking at all when Freddie slips the glass from his hand and leads him to the back.

***

“It’s forty a song.” 

The statement is brusque, business-like, and such a direct contrast that Brian blinks. He’s seated on a leather couch under harsh, heavy lighting, darker than the club outside this room, with a hand holding him in place as Freddie settles himself carefully. One red-clad thigh, defined and taut, rests between his spread legs, the other tucked close enough to touch. It’s a balancing act, one designed to make Brian reach out and steady him, clasp his hands to Freddie’s waist or his hips or his ass. 

Brian waits, keeps his hands flat on the leather, and quirks an eyebrow up at Freddie who’s eying him expectantly. “You’ve picked the perfect time to tell me.” He runs a hand up the hard expanse of Freddie’s left thigh, spreads his fingers wide. “Hard to say no, now.”

Freddie flips back, smirking once again. “Or I’m just hard to say no to?” And he lifts himself up to fiddle with the CD player above. The lines of his body stretch, closer to Brian than ever. “Any requests?”

“You decide.”

Freddie huffs. “You’re fucking hard work, dear,” and Brian laughs.

“I’m sure you’re up to the task,” He says as the song starts, something rich and heavy and wordless, and Freddie begins to move. 

He looks like a stripper. From the tight red trousers to the tie knotted askew on his bare chest, Freddie exudes sex on every level. It’s there in the tilt of his head and the flint of his smile. The _touch me_ the _fuck me_ the dare of it all. From head to toe, Freddie looks like any stripper on the floor, if a very good one.

He moves like something else entirely.

There’s only so much difference in a lap dance, Brian thought, the basics pretty much the same in any club. It’s a dance designed to deceive; close enough to thrill, close enough to be a promise, but carefully held back so Freddie never has to deliver on it. That’s what he’d been expecting. Something tantalising, clever, a continuation of Freddie’s adept performance at the bar. 

But as soon as the music begins, anything choreographed about Freddie disappears, stripped away almost completely. 

It’s as if Freddie’s given over to the music, the heavy guitar and the thudding bass, a conduit for the raw sound. With his head tilting back and eyes closed, hips rocking to a beat so low Brian can feel it in his chest, Brian could easily not be here. Then Freddie comes back, dark eyes unerringly finding Brian’s, and Brian can’t shake the feeling that this is something different. 

It’s Freddie who reaches out first, hand suddenly hot on the side of Brian’s neck, Brian the only thing anchoring him as he moves, and Brian reaches back in kind, rests his hands on the bare, warm skin above Freddie’s waistband. His thumbs begin circling into the flesh there, in perfect time with Freddie’s movements.

“ _Finally_.” Freddie grinds harder, and Brian was wrong. It’s not a dance. It’s sex with clothes on, its foreplay, it’s bodies moving. Like this, it looks like Brian’s the one pulling Freddie closer and closer, sliding him down his knee to his lap, and Brian can feel himself getting hard and knows Freddie can feel it too. “Making me fucking work for it, darling.”

Brian grins, and this time he does pull Freddie closer. “For forty a song, you better.”

A laugh startles from Freddie, seeming almost genuine even in the heavy lights, and were this a bar or his bed, Brian would reach up and taste the sound, steal it from Freddie’s mouth.

He’s surprised by how much he wants to anyway. 

Freddie’s smile changes to something wicked, as if he can read Brian’s thoughts. If they’re counting points in this game, Freddie’s pulling ahead with every roll of his hips, every time Brian’s grip tightens on him. Brian hates to lose, but if losing feels like the good, solid weight of a beautiful man in his lap, he’s not complaining.

“The hard ones are always more fun.” Freddie dips closer to purr the words in Brian’s ear, still moving his hips in tight little circles. There’s a brush of something against Brian’s neck that could be the full pout of Freddie’s mouth, could just be the tease of his breath. ”It gets boring sometimes and I like a challenge.”

He’s figured out the lines of Brian’s arousal quickly, Brian has to give him that. A body is a body is a body and Brian’s enjoyed more than his fair share, but a mouth...Brian has always been partial to some lip, quick and clever and filthy, a murmuring in his ear, a glint of teeth, a little edge behind the smile. Gone now is the false coyness of before. Freddie is out for blood.

His hand slips to the knot of Brian’s tie “Gonna slap me away again?” He asks, and grinds down like a challenge. “You’d think I’d gone for your wallet, how fast you moved.”

“Thought about it, did you?” Brian tips his head back to allow Freddie the access he needs to begin loosening the tie around his neck, slip the top button open, then the next, the next.

“Maybe,” Freddie teases, and settles himself back in Brian’s lap to fully attend to the task of unlacing Brian’s tie. Sat against him, Brian can feel his half-hard cock against his own. Wonders if that’s a victory for him or for Freddie. “But there are more interesting ways of getting your money, darling.”

Thus far, Freddie is the most interesting stripper Brian’s ever met. There’s a savage delight in Freddie that he’s not seen before. Freddie _enjoys_ this, enjoys being what he is and talking about it with a kind of filthy candidness. Freddie is a body, Brian is a wallet, everything else is a game to play and Freddie seems to like winning as much as Brian does.

“Still thinking too much?” Freddie asks, dragging Brian’s tie free and draping it over his own shoulder like a trophy of war. Brian wants to take Freddie’s for his own. “Or should we have another song?”

The next song is already playing. Against him, Freddie is hot and waiting, a slight sheen of sweat on his chest from his movements and the hollow of his collarbones look dark and inviting in the red lights. Brian slips his thumbs into the hook of Freddie’s waistband, splays his fingers wide. He can feel the muscles of Freddie’s thighs jumping beneath his palms. Freddie keeps steady, heavy eye contact that only flickers when Brian tilts his own hips. Not much, not enough to cross any lines Freddie hasn’t already, but it’s answer enough. Freddie isn’t going anywhere.

Freddie grins, and begins again.

***

The cigarettes are a mistake but Brian buys them anyway. 

It’s becoming something of a theme.

It’s a habit he hates about himself, so he buys the most lurid packet he can, just in the hopes he might feel some kind of shame about pulling these out of his jacket. There’s a bright red target on the top that he taps his finger against, impatient, as he waits for his change. 

He has a headache gathering like a storm behind his eyes, courtesy of a too-early phone-call from Chrissy, and suddenly all he can think of is the specific way her nose would crinkle if she smelt smoke on him. The way her lips would purse and she’d shake her head and never say a word.

(It had been the same when she smelt perfume on him.

She’d had a _little_ more to say when she’d smelt aftershave.)

“Benson and Hedges,” comes from behind him, and it takes Brian a second to recognise the soft voice. 

It’s the wrong context, the wrong lighting, and there’s not a thudding baseline to contend with, no roaring in his ears, but when he turns and finds Freddie, Freddie from the club, hard-bodied, dark-eyed, can’t-quite-get-out-of-his-head Freddie, he’s not surprised.

Freddie, on the other hand, looks mortified.

He looks different in the light, is the first thing Brian notices. His face is bare which makes him look even younger, and there’s a redness around his eyes as if he’s struggling to stay awake. Brian considers the hour. An early morning for him might be a late night coming off shift for Freddie. Brian can’t help but wonder which poor soul Freddie seduced into the back room tonight to fleece of all their money, the way he had Brian.

Even like this, startled and bare faced, Freddie looks capable of it.

“Sorry,” Brian hears himself say. “I’m in the way.”

The laugh Freddie gives is polite and nervous, a far cry from the cock-sure bravado of the other night, and even the way he’s holding himself is different. There’s a shy tilt to his head, a hunch to his shoulders as if making himself even smaller, and as Brian watches he worries a pink bottom lip between his teeth.

Brian gets his change and collects up the cigarettes. Freddie’s eyes alight on them, dart back to Brian’s face, then slide away. The disinterest is clearly feigned; Freddie’s body is coiled so tight in discomfort that Brian’s sure if he reached out and touched him, even a hand brushed to his elbow as he passes by, Freddie would jump a mile.

Outside, the air is clearer. No fluorescent off-licence lights and surprising appearances from strippers so good with their hips that all week Brian’s been thinking what a shame it had been to leave when he did. Just as it was getting good, just as Freddie thought he had him.

He taps out a cigarette and places it between his lips.

The habit is filthy and killed his father, but there must be a genetic weakness somewhere, coded in his DNA, because when the world gets to be too much for Brian nothing helps like the haze of smoke. 

He waits. 

The door to the off-licence chimes.

Brian exhales all the smoke in his lungs before he turns to see what Freddie has decided to make of this situation.

He’s in a leather jacket, too big for him in the shoulders and sleeves, and there’s still a smudge of eyeliner at the corner of his eye. Freddie looks like he’s coming off a hard night, secrets bared honest in the morning light, and he still looks fucking gorgeous for it.

Next to Brian, he looks like rough trade.

He looks like he knows it, too.

“Any chance of a light?” The cigarette he holds out is held out daintily between two splayed fingers. Brian can remember the cleverness of those hands, the feel of them against his skin. He bends in as Brian holds out his father’s old lighter, heavy and brass, and his cheeks hollow as he inhales lightly. Barely halfway through the drag, Freddie points the cigarette at Brian, almost accusingly. “You didn’t smell of smoke the other night.”

“I can imagine I did.” The club had been rife with it, from customers on the floor to the machines pumping it out across the stage. Haze of smoke. Although, “You didn’t either.”

“Not on the nights I’m working,” Freddie shrugs, takes another non-drag. 

Does he not know how or is it another act, another prop to fit the character Freddie’s trying to squeeze himself into? 

“Men like me smelling sweet.” The cigarette is barely burned past the tip when Freddie drops it to the pavement, crushes it under his heel. Even that, oddly graceful. It makes Brian wonder how much of this is a front. “You’ve not been back to the club.”

Less a statement than another accusation. As if Brian had a part to play that he didn’t adhere to.

Freddie’s eyes are dangerous, Brian decides as he carefully inhales another lungful of smoke. They’re open in a way that makes Brian want to believe in whatever act Freddie’s putting forward or, rather, that there’s something behind the act to find. As if he’s the first sucker to try to find a heart of gold in a dime-a-dozen stripper.

“Didn’t you get everything you wanted from me the other night?”

“Not everything, dear.”

Brian laughs, shakes his head. His cigarette is burning close to the filter. Much closer and his fingers will burn. “Is Freddie even your real name?” He asks before he can stop himself, and Freddie blinks at him in clear confusion.

A small wrinkle appears in Freddie’s forehead, and when he answers Brian can tell it’s without artifice even if it’s not an entirely straight answer. “What else would it be?”

The unshakeable confidence from the other night doesn’t quite stand up in the light of day; Freddie looks thrown off guard by the question.

“I was expecting a stage name.”

“ _Oh_ , I have one of _those_.” Freddie waves a hand dismissively. “Didn’t think it would work with you, dear.”

He’s probably right, though it would also probably have had to have been pretty tacky to make Brian say no to the pull Freddie has.

“What is it?”

Freddie _blushes_ , two light spots of pink appearing high on his cheeks, and Brian _has_ to know now. He rather likes this Freddie, shy and unassuming in a jacket two sizes too big. He wonders who it belongs to.

Freddie mumbles something unintelligible under his breath and despite it all, Brian wishes they were back in the club. There he could tuck a finger under Freddie’s chin, lift his gaze and wait to be told properly. You can’t get away with actions like that at 7am on a Tuesday.

“What was that?” He asks anyway, and Freddie must hear the tinge of amusement in his voice because then he lifts his head, eyes flashing.

“Mercury,” He says coolly, hand imperiously finding his hip which cocks into a stance that _dares_ Brian to laugh now. There’s still a flush to his cheeks but he stares Brian down.

Brian bites back his grin. “Suits you,” He says, because it does.

Freddie huffs, seeming to realise that he just gave Brian exactly what he wanted anyway. “Oh, fuck off.” There’s a slight laugh on his breath as he turns away, shakes his head and tries to hide a smile.

It’s a different smile to the ones Brian’s seen so far. Freddie’s smiles have been often and generous, perfectly held or wicked as sin, but this one Brian hasn’t seen before. It’s real in a way that’s stupid to even think about. 

It’s gone when Freddie lifts his head, fixes Brian with a determined look, and Brian recognises this one. Not from the room, where everything was heated and heavy and anything erring on real came from two bodies finding chemistry in the dark. This is Freddie when he’s clever, when he’s working. Brian handed over nearly two hundred in cash on Thursday. That's the only reason Freddie is bothering with him in the light of day.

“You should come back.”

Brian inhales one last time, drops his cigarette just before the burn. “And why would I do that?”

“You didn’t see me dance.” Freddie pouts, honest-to-goodness _pouts_ , and where it should look ridiculous it just looks cute which is somehow even worse.

“I saw you dance.”

On a sixpence, Freddie switches back, pout spreading into something wicked and sinful. Brian’s head would spin with it, if he weren’t having too much fun. “Darling, that wasn’t _dancing_. You and I had a lot more fun than that.”

There’s a definitive line that Freddie’s not crossing. Brian can see it in the way he’s holding himself. A line like that would have benefited from a coy touch on the arm, something to draw Brian’s attention and hold it while Freddie went for the kill. The fact that he doesn’t, just lifts an eyebrow as if daring Brian to disagree, and Brian still can’t look away, is damning.

Brian could disagree. It’d be a lie but he could do it; words are cheap and he imagines Freddie knows this better than anyone. There’s a dozen responses Brian could give to end this now, walk away and never again think about the stripper with the dark eyes and the wicked mouth, go back to his life and keep living it as it is.

He finds he doesn’t want to at all.

He wants to see Freddie dance.

“When?” He asks, and Freddie smiles. 

***

Friday night and Brian’s back at the club. This time he leaves his briefcase behind, nothing with him but his car-keys and his wallet. Still straight from the office, a little later than he’d promised Freddie he’d arrive, but Freddie probably isn’t even expecting him to show anyway. He’s not sure why he even is, except for the fact that he wanted to.

He should know better.

When Roger sees him, he laughs, shakes his head, and gets Brian a drink. “Gets what he wants, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” Brian lies without skill and takes the drink. It feels necessary. Then, “You know him well?”

Roger shrugs. “As well as anyone can know one of these boys. The clever ones, anyway.” As he talks, his eyes find something in the back of the room, and even before Brian turns he knows it’s Freddie. Even from across the room, half-hidden in shadow, he finds him instantly.

Freddie hasn’t noticed him yet, which is an interesting change of pace. Brian can’t imagine that there’s ever a time that Freddie’s ever got it fully turned _off_ , especially on the job, but from this distance, with it not directly aimed at Brian, the perspective is different. Freddie’s wearing an illegally short silk dressing gown - _Kimono_ , Brian’s brain supplies helpfully - and is arguing with a man behind a lighting desk.

Brian takes his time following up the lines of Freddie’s, very bare, legs - which makes Brian wonder at what he could possibly be wearing under a gown that short and if, in fact, he’s wearing anything at all - and stops at Freddie’s face. There’s a scowl there that he actually recognises; Freddie is not getting his way on something.

“He’s a good kid. Bratty as all hell, but sweet too.” Roger says it like it’s a secret Brian shouldn’t be privy to, follows it with, “Don’t tell him I said that. Kid likes to be seen a certain way.”

_Don’t we all,_ Brian doesn’t say. Instead says, emphatically. “ _Please_ stop calling him a kid.” 

Freddie’s body is the body of a man and a man in his prime, but Brian hasn’t asked the question of age. At thirty-nine, he knows what the answer is going to do to him.

Roger’s laugh is a cackle. “You’re fine, old man. You’re definitely not the oldest he’s had.”

Brian raises an eyebrow. “Should you be saying that?”

“You’re in a strip club on a Friday night, Brian.” Roger holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence, though the mischief in his face gives the game away. “You know what you’re doing here.”

“You _work_ here,” Brian counters. “You never grew up after uni, did you?”

But instead of laughing, Roger leans on the bar. Not enough to be serious but enough that Brian leans in to listen. “Mate, I run this place. I don’t have to work the floor, not even close, but I do because it’s good to show my face. Lets me know what’s going on, yeah?” Then the grin breaks free. “And so I know which old perverts are eying up the dancers.”

“Fuck _off._ ” Brian draws back, laughing, but the words stick somewhere important. Something to be taken out and examined.

Examined later. He’s saved from answering Roger by a light tap on his shoulder. Roger grins again, pulls a kissy face, and wanders off down the bar to other, less occupied, customers. Brian watches him leave, consideringly, then turns to find Freddie.

Freddie is different all over again. Not the creature from the back-room this time, or the bare-faced boy in the street, honest in the daylight. He’s not even the same as he was when he first approached Brian at the bar, though it feels familiar. It’s like a vision trick, all three Freddies blending into one before his eyes, and he has to blink to keep his focus.

Though it might just be the way Freddie’s eyes are kohl-lined and his lips are glistening with something bound to taste of plastic and gloss, that’s making it hard to concentrate.

“You came.” It’s said without a single trace of interest, as if Brian’s presence was an expected thing, but Freddie’s eyes are bright with pleasure.

“I came.”

Freddie’s kimono is tied enticingly loose. One quick tug of Brian’s finger and the belt would unknot, reveal the answer to the question that Brian is idly wondering. Freddie has a smile on his face like he knows exactly what Brian is thinking, so Brian doesn’t try to hide it.

“This your outfit?” He asks - _teases_ , he realises - flicking one of the strings lightly. Freddie’s hand darts out to slap him away, playful and laughing in a way that feels almost inappropriate in the dark light and the heavy music.

The kimono is delicate, soft to the touch, an utter contrast to the angular line of Freddie’s jaw, the maleness of him even in gentle pink silk. Brian likes it, likes the dark hair on Freddie’s chest, drawing the eye down. Reminds him that this is a _man_ in front of him, hard-bodied and solid. 

“ _No_ ,” Freddie scolds, and does something funny with his mouth as he sits delicately on the stool beside Brian. It takes Brian a second to realise that he’s holding down a smile, which makes it all the more obvious that the smile he’s been showing Brian so far, perfect and restrained, is utterly fake. “I’ll put that on before I dance.”

He crosses one leg elegantly over the other and the kimono falls down the stretch of his thigh. All Brian can see is skin.

Their eyes meet, hold, and the air is sex-heavy and clouded with bodies and alcohol and music, but all of a sudden it gets heavier, deepens, and it’s just the two of them in it. 

Brian’s lips part and Freddie’s eyes drop to the movement, drop lower.

This time, Brian left the tie at work, loosened the collar of his shirt and undid the top few buttons in an act that suddenly seems utterly transparent. He wonders if Freddie can smell the expensive cologne he used to get the smell of the office off him, and hopes the club is so swimming with different perfumes and smokes that it’s not obvious.

“When are you dancing?” He hears himself ask.

Freddie looks back again. Swallows. There’s an inevitability at play here that Brian can’t help but give himself over to. It’s easy, when Freddie looks like this, smiles like that. “Oh, you’ll know it when you see it, darling,” He says, coy as anything, but the vision-trick is still in place. Freddie is putting on a performance again, Brian wonders if he’s ever not, but somehow Brian’s in on the joke this time. “But I’ve got time for a drink.”

“Another French 75?”

The smirk Freddie breaks into at Brian’s tone is both sheepish and shameless. “Don’t be upset, darling. It was hardly the most expensive thing you bought that night.”

Brian bites back a grin. He’s beginning to realise how much that’s true.

He signals to Roger, who brings over another short glass of whiskey for him along with a highball glass filled with a sparklingly clear liquid, a curve of lemon peel, and ice. Freddie’s usual, he surmises, since Freddie didn’t get a chance to order anything. Lucky for him, really. Brian might have insisted on bloody fruit juice rather than another expensive cocktail going untouched, given the chance.

But Freddie knocks back a good portion of the drink without hesitation, and Brian can tell from the tightness around his eyes as he tries not to wince that there’s alcohol in the drink. He sips his own, more slowly, and guesses that Freddie doesn’t need to be as careful as he was the other night. 

Brian’s already here, isn’t he?

Then Brian notices the way Freddie’s teeth are worrying at his bottom lip, eyes darting to the stage as his hand plays distractedly with the rim of his glass. There’s a dancer already up there, Brian knows, young and lithe and certainly captivating. Brian had been half-paying attention before Freddie arrived.

Freddie doesn’t seem to be looking at him, though. His gaze is lower, as if watching steps.

“Nervous?”

Freddie blinks, turns back to Brian with a jolt, and something in Brian sighs at the sight of Freddie’s mask pulling firmly back into place. “Don’t be _ridiculous,_ darling,” he reaches over to tap scoldingly at Brian’s knee, the touch a distraction. “I do this every night. You didn’t see but I’m the best there is.” He says it with a dismissive hand wave at the stage behind him, as if he hadn’t just been eyeing it like it was going to eat him alive.

“I can imagine.” Freddie is sex and mystery with a taste of something gritty and an edge of some sweet vulnerability that only shows in flashes. He dances around conversation and Brian’s head like a runaway and moves like he doesn’t know how to be still. He’s utterly captivating and Brian isn’t entirely sure he’s ready for the performance Freddie’s planning on giving.

The tops of Freddie’s cheeks flush.

He rallies quick enough. Brian’s not the first man to compliment him. “Anyway, you’re not going to sit here at the bar like a gawker all night, are you?” He raises an eyebrow that would be imperious if Brian hadn’t just seen him stumble. “The worst ones sit at the bar, they never tip.”

Last Brian checked, Freddie approached him at the bar last time. When he mentions this, Freddie waves a hand like it’s irrelevant. “I was bored and you looked like a challenge,” He admits, which he’d said then too. Brian had thought it was just talk. “Nice suit, attractive, ordering the good whiskey. You had a _briefcase_. Most boys here haven’t a hope in hell of getting you to agree to a dance.”

“Except you.”

“Told you I’m the best.” But there’s a smile, truer than any Brian’s seen so far, playing at the corners of Freddie’s mouth even as he sips coyly at his drink.

Brian swills his own drink around the glass then lifts it. “Prove it.”

“I-” The quiet demand startles Freddie a little but he raises his chin. “Watch me properly then. Come to tip rail.”

Brian’s heard the term before, can see the small crowd of men held back by the firm gold-plated bar that edges the stage. The dancer has finished his set and is dipping, elegantly in high heels, to collect up the proffered fistfuls of cash from the eager first row. It puts a sour taste in his mouth at the sight, the reminder of where he is and who he’s with. It tingles down the back of his spine and makes his thumbs itch all the same.

“You want one of them?” He jerks his head at the crowd. There’s an edge in his voice that Freddie picks up on like prey, a glint of teeth.

“I think,” He says, delicately setting his glass to one side and hopping off his stool. ‘I’ve been very clear about what I want.”

He’s barefoot, Brian realises, as he watches Freddie walk away, and the sight of Freddie’s pale heels twists something in his chest he can’t define.

“Tip rail,” Freddie throws over his shoulder, with a wink. “It’ll be worth it, darling.” And is gone behind the curtains.

Brian throws back the rest of his whiskey, and orders another.

***

He stays at the bar for the next few dancers. Pretty, young things with more muscle strength and flexibility than sense. Between each dance, a figure in black darts out from the wings to wipe down the pole, collect up the crumpled notes scattered around the stage that the dancer left behind. 

Brian finds himself watching the curtains each time to try and catch a glimpse of the next dancer, if it’s Freddie, and gives himself a talking to every time it’s not.

After the fourth, he heads over to the tip rail. He collects up his barely touched third glass, ignores the eyebrow raise Roger throws him, and settles himself at a table in the second row.

Here, the stage is eye-level, the pole looking a lot more fragile this close despite Brian seeing it hold up boy after boy all evening. There are men scattered around tables, same as Brian, but as the dancer on stage draws to a crescendo, chest heaving and music banging, several rise to their feet, fistfuls of cash falling around the dancer like rain. 

Brian has a money clip in his breast pocket that suddenly feels like it’s on fire against his chest.

The song ends and the dancer makes his way to the back of the stage, a different creature entirely as he pads off, collecting up stray notes and the articles of clothing he discarded. The stage is dark again by the time he reaches the curtain, in anticipation of the next dancer. A flash of dim light as the curtain is pulled to the side to let him through, and Brian sees a familiar silhouette slip into the darkness.

Something twists in his gut like expectation.

The song is already beginning, a low and filthy beat through speakers specially made for this kind of sound. It resonates in Brian’s chest like a rising pulse, as if it’s been a part of him this whole time and only now is he noticing.

A spotlight clicks on. Not red, the most popular choice amongst the acts that Brian’s seen, but a bright, blinding light, and it lights Freddie up, costume and all.

He doesn’t look a thing like a policeman, though Brian can see the care that’s gone into the get up. Freddie looks exactly what he is, a stripper dressed up in leather and chains. His shorts are tight and black, leather riding high enough his thigh when he bends that Brian instantly feels his own trousers tighten like he’s some hormonal brat teen in public school all over again. The jacket is the one he was wearing in the street, oversized and hanging off of one shoulder.

The hat is too big for him, comes down over his eyes.

He should look ridiculous.

Then he moves. 

***

It’s a dingy alley out back but the air is clearer. Brian can still hear the undertones of the heavy beating music, but it’s muted as he taps out a cigarette. He doesn’t need it, but his fingertips are still tingling with the brush of Freddie’s hand to his, the triumphant snatch of what Freddie was owed.

The dance had been good. Technically so, sexy without being overt, but definitely shameless enough on Freddie’s part that many of the men at the rail had begun showering Freddie with crisp and crumpled notes almost before he even did any work with the pole. His body had been working hard, energy and movement working together in his compact frame, and as he’d lost first the hat, the jacket, the tight shirt and the tighter shorts, revealing more of that skin lit up by red lighting, Brian hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away. 

But it was the look on Freddie’s face when he’d finished that had Brian reaching for his wallet. He’d looked like he’d just been taken to bed, eyes bright and flush high, and Brian had lifted a few leafs of notes up between his fingers. Freddie had reached over and taken them directly from Brian’s hand, leaving the rest to be collected by an attendant, and had walked away without a glance.

Almost.

As he’d reached the curtain, he’d stopped, hand on the thick velvet, and turned back. His eyes had met Brian’s across the room, before disappearing once again.

Brian pauses with his cigarette a hairsbreadth from his lips, then lights a second.

The ash has barely begun to crumble on the first when the door opens behind him and Freddie slips out into the alley.

The only light is the streetlamps at the end of the alley, neon shop fronts and the passing cab headlights and Freddie lit up in them is human once again. Something Brian can touch and oh, god, how he wants to. 

Freddie’s lost the hat, the ridiculous thing, and has pulled on a soft-looking t-shirt tucked tightly into jeans. Brian had half expected him to be back in the leather trousers he just tore off, but he supposes they might be rather difficult to shimmy in and out of. He’s is in the too-large leather jacket that he wraps around himself to push out the chill as he picks his way towards Brian.

He’s not surprised by the cigarette Brian has ready for him, but is clearly pleased as he lifts it from Brian’s fingers.

Brian takes his own first drag at the same time as Freddie, holds it in his lungs until it burns. “You were right.”

“I usually am,” Freddie flicks off the ash then flicks away the whole cigarette. The lit tip creates an arc of light in the dark. He doesn’t ask Brian to qualify. Brian imagines he doesn’t care. Then he steals the other cigarette from Brian’s hand and, with careful intent, stubs it out against the wall beside them.

Brian lifts an eyebrow but otherwise doesn’t protest. He’s curious. More than that, he’s hungry.

“So,” Freddie says, eyes still on the stub in his hand before he tosses it after its predecessor without a second look. His eyes lift to Brian’s then, and they’re so dark in this half-light that Brian can read nothing in them but he already knows exactly what Freddie is about to ask. “Are you going to take me home?”

This decision was made a long time ago.

Brian takes him home.


End file.
